Ric Carfagna

from Symphony #10

Prologue 


This light 

that has gathered

is intrinsically other

forming obdurate angles

from a late afternoon sun

where the awakening eye observes 

changes in a burgeoning field 

the growth of many days

of what is felt in the heart

to be something 

other than tares 

something of substance

viscerally grasped 

an ontology of belief 

fears or fate 

or a leaf 

suspended 

in a spider’s web 

a movement 




through a galaxy’s 

inner recesses 

… 

“as if we instinctively know”

the reason finalities arise

a continuum’s quanta 

to define 

an anthropocentric logic

… 

and is it 

enough to know 

what is unsullied 

is unmanifest 

a Gnostic forest 

lost among trees 

a path to differentiate 

signal from noise 

stalemate from semaphore 

identity from anonymity 

death from… 




V 



And this ocean becomes 

an indeterminate factor 

a random outflow 

of occurrence 

on a landscape 

where only names survive 

and where dust follows 

a wind’s nomadic trance 

through time’s diminishing wake

… 

and speak to this 

as a moment stolen 

from the pendulum’s swing 

from the prismatic labyrinth 

of photonic entanglement 

and from mass given 

to a consciousness unfolding 

within the immateriality of thought




… 

and who can pierce the veil 

which occludes yet reveals 

subtle rendering of a faceless deity

the halcyon wind 

of passing angelic wing 

and a universe forming 

in the blink of an averted eye 

… 

and now 

the moon 

at perihelion 

the burnished shadow 

of a future made present 

and of Orion’s glittery sword 

rising behind the grass-blade meadow

and the gun-metal-grey skyline’s expanse





XXVIII 


And to not speak 

of death 

as occurring 

outside this room 

of florid wallpaper patterns 

and a glass vase 

holding a plastic rose 

where the weight of gravity 

is decay 

and the evidence surrounds 

this incontrovertible conclusion 

that blood does not flow 

from the stone god’s 

heart and limbs 

and the intimate faith 

is desolation 

calling into 

a cognitive void 

calling into 



a landscape 

set ablaze 

leaving embers 

to contemplate 

a shell 

removed 

into a corridor 

of sleep 

where revelation is 

a cresting ocean wave 

and desire is hidden 

in transcendental recesses 

untorched by human hands 



LI 



And the eye is an ocean 

“as we moved in circles 

against the tide” 

losing a focus 



blurred by weaker harmonies 

resonating beneath 

a turbulent skin 

… 

“and we noted 

distinct features” 

losing their identity 

in the proximity 

of a canvas 

portraying an abstract landscape 

… 

“and we recalled 

Rothco’s metaphysical vision” 

one note 

on a stave 

harboring 

a celestial music 

of the spheres 

one image 

emerging 

from a cognitive fog 




and one eye 

observing 

in isolation 

how the ocean moves 

in cyclical pulsations 

refusing to be contained 

by one species 

seeking order 

or by one mind 

which ebbs and flows 

asymmetrically 

across a windless strand 




Interlude III 



Time exists 

as a primordial abstraction 

present in the cellular structures 

which materialize 

as a physical world 




… 

and the sea 

brings life 

through an open doorway 

brings perception 

through time 

leaving spaces 

where dust collects 

in rooms of small hours 

where ghosted appendages 

trace polygons 

on a glazed pane 

… 

and winter is 

what is 

left behind 

the fragments 

of a sculpture destroyed 

a perspective 

through a bricked up window 

and pages torn 



from a book of days 



LXXX 



And she sleeps 

in a cloistered room’s 

intimate enclosure 

a shaft of sunlight 

moving across 

an ocean 

at dawn 

a sparrow 

in a hedgerow 

and the spiral geometries 

of fractal time waves 

hidden in corners 

and unfathomed by the eye 



and she wakes 

from her dream 




to an insular expanse 

peopled with gelatinized wraiths 

and nameless faces 

martyred torsos 

lying beside 

the iron cathedral’s gate 

and a song thrush 

preening itself 

on the prow of a barque 

littered with 

moldering autumn leaves 

… 

and there are shadows 

of what is not 

left behind 

residual debris 

coiffed from a collective memory’s 

primordial wreckage 

weeds in a field of lilies 

reflecting the sun 

on a north facing slope 




the silent ending of many lives 

hidden by lunar penumbral drift 

and sentient breath drawn through 

dimensional curvatures in lifeless space 

… 

and she wakes 

from her dream 

recognizing a self 

as a terminal entity 

abandoned to a nomadic anonymity 

a mirror’s blank stare 

and the disembodied dead 

materializing 

as voiceless gods 

passing from sight 

and returning to dust 




XCVIII 



“And we observed” 



where the scars formed 

and understood 

how the eye is 

the maker of illusion 

and how the day follows 

like numbers 

removed from an equation 

… 

“and we saw the flower’s bloom” 

desiccated and 

black with age 

sag and drop 

from its spindly limb 

and the wind 

morphing the surface 

of the vernal pool 

… 

“and the apparent illusion 

in all external motion 

giving rise to the internal 

contemplation 




that essence exists 

apart from an ontological entity 

determining its being” 

… 

and at mid-day 

the eye follows 

 light through an aperture 

each photon 

a distinct act 

of inarticulate will 

… 

“and some muse” 

that a higher power 

predestines 

all things physical 

yet stands 

apart 

in impermeable distance 

… 

“and some formulate” 

the outcome 




as discrete variables 

in an indeterminate equation 

… 

“and we observed” 

 how the wounds heal 

and scars form 

“and we interpreted” 

what is before 

the eye 

as mere shadow 

casting what is 

isolated and abandoned 

on the rising tides of deeper seas 


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